“Will I get bulky if I lift weights at home” is what a client asked me in the gym today! Now, let me set the scene, this client is female, early 30s, around 5ft 7inches tall and weighing just over 8 stone. She is pretty much gazelle-like in an enviable way! Now, this is a question that I get asked a lot of times by women when they first enter the gym and especially the free weights section! They see big burly men there, grunting their way through a workout, with biceps bigger than their heads and veins that look like they may explode at any second and then we walk in, us women, who in general have very little experience in lifting free weights, and not only do we feel a little intimidated by the big men working out in this area but we’re also a little apprehensive that two weeks down the line we will also grow biceps that rival the size of our heads! So, I’d like to put a couple of things straight!!
Firstly, putting on muscle takes A LOT of hard work! It takes hours in the gym, lifting weights in various rep ranges, it takes a diet high in protein to help build and repair muscles and it also takes a lot of the hormone testosterone! Now this is something that us women just don’t have in abundance. Yes we do have a small amount of testosterone in the body (which is produced in relatively small quantities by the ovaries and adrenal glands which we use to help maintain muscle and bone mass and also helps with our sex drive) but it’s really not enough to allow us to get ‘bulky’! Now I’m a woman who enjoys lifting weights (I can squat just over my body weight and I can deadlift 1.5 times body weight), my diet is high in protein and I also regularly drink protein shakes, and yet, I don’t think anyone I know would call me bulky! To become a ‘bulky women’ doesn’t happen accidentally! It takes hard work, months of dedication and training and a LOT of lifting weights! So, when my client asked me that question “will I get bulky if I lift weights at home’ and I answered ‘what weights are you lifting’ and the reply was ‘2kg’ I could very safely say ‘you know what, you’re going to be absolutely fine’!!….